5 ms·

Psychopathy to Altruism: Neurobiology of the Selfish–Selfless Spectrum

91 points by lainon 8y ago

bhouston 8y ago
One also has to factor in second dimension which is behavior towards in-group and out-groups. I understand that as we become more multi-cultural, there is a decrease in the percieved kinship between city dwellers and thus less alturistic behavior. Basically, in diverse cities people are more likely to be assholes to each other. > Relatively homogeneous societies invest more in public goods, indicating a higher level of public altruism. For example, the degree of ethnic homogeneity correlates with the government's share of gross domestic product as well as the average wealth of citizens. Case studies of the United States, Africa and South-East Asia find that multi-ethnic societies are less charitable and less able to cooperate to develop public infrastructure. Moscow beggars receive more gifts from fellow ethnics than from other ethnies [sic]. A recent multi-city study of municipal spending on public goods in the United States found that ethnically or racially diverse cities spend a smaller portion of their budgets and less per capita on public services than do the more homogeneous cities. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiculturalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiculturalism
- digi_owl 8y ago
  Do wonder if in/out and altruism/psychopathy overlap. Meaning that an altruist has a wider sense of in-group, while a psychopath has a much narrower one. I guess this however opens up the possibility that one can "learn" to be a psychopath by narrowing ones in-group.
  - mantas 8y ago
    That'd mean most, if not all, ancient people were psychopaths. Also, many people are not altruistic even to their in-group.
- Bizarro 8y ago
  I understand that as we become more multi-cultural, there is a decrease in the percieved kinship between city dwellers and thus less alturistic behavior. Maybe more multi-ethnic, but I'm not sure about multi-cultural. If anything, at least we globally share a baseline of culture because of the internet and I only see that increasing...hopefully.
  - mantas 8y ago
    Hopefully not. Monocultural world would be a very boring place. We need true cultural diversity on planet earth. Not this mono-culture-but-multiple-colors-and-dongles bullshit.
    - xvire 8y ago
      Yes, wars, fueled by cultural differences are not great, but god save us from boredom.
      - mantas 8y ago
        If your goal is to have no wars, plenty of scum would gladly take the wheel and force their culture upon you.
    - hutzlibu 8y ago
      He said a baseline of culture. Not global monoculture standard
      - mantas 8y ago
        What if baseline happens to be China and Russia style? I'd rather not rely on baselines.
    - gepi79 8y ago
      Important cultural differences (not festivities and language but religion and morality and ethics) means that people of a culture can not enjoy or even tolerate another culture. As European, I can only hope the world will adapt a secular vegan European-like culture and not e.g. the war loving US culture with lying government officials (even worse than some European nations) or the Chinese culture (e.g. Social Credits and no freedom of speech) or the work culture of South Korea and Japan or a Muslim/Sharia culture or a culture of genital mutilation of boys and girls or a culture of throwing acid in the faces of people or a caste system like in India.
- agumonkey 8y ago
  I seriously wonder if there's a gradient of altruism based on resemblance.
jph 8y ago
The selfish–selfless spectrum is valuable for technical leaders to improve teamwork, in my experience. We call this social value orientation (SVO) which involves an individual’s natural preference with respect to the allocation of resources. During technical leadership this comes up with e.g. feature prioritization, competitive/collaborative agile planning, and how to create "nudges" to increase team success. https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/social_value_orientation https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/social_value_orientat...
- ExactoKnight 8y ago
  Very interesting. My only criticism? Perhaps too much of a focus on procedural justice. Peter Thiel has a great talk on how one of the biggest problems in western societies is that we have moved away from having a determinate view of the future, to an indeterminate one. This has been driven in big part on the idea that process matter more than substance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZM_JmZdqCw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZM_JmZdqCw E.g. Lawyers are more concerned with society having a fair process or procedure for doing things, than its advancement.
  - acou_nPlusOne_t 8y ago
    But the future is undeterministic? Its a tree with lots of branches- of which one of those with variations will become reality. To assume one knows the exact path, might be a helpfull tool for a small group working towards a goal, but from the eagle perspective, that is what all these companies are. Exploring branches of a tree of propabilites. Thiel basically argues for not having his view as a large scale investor. But that is bogus, if you want to be a succesfull CEO you might have to pivot, pivoting essentially means giving up your branch- and navigate to another branch of the scenario tree, whos succes-propability is closely related to your tech. Which is why you should think about what is possible with the stuff you develop, not about one product. This of course is demoralizing for the individual coder. If you write code that is product-bound, that code could go to the bin at any second. That is why they usually do not get told. At some level- there is only one product, on mission, one group against all others. But at project management level, one should realize there might even within the same companys, several projects clustering around the same core-tech, trying to use what is possible for diffrent approaches.
WillReplyfFood 8y ago
I still vehemently disagree on displaying this as a discreet spectrum. This suggests that a "normed" middle exists - which intuitively might seem right. But if you consider the human condition, which is usually maxing out a habbitats ressource with followed up warfare and habbitat recovery due to the warfare- then the "spectrum" is merely a adaption to the cycle of strife, mere sides to a coin which adapted to maximize throughput of individuals supporting the adaption too the cycle of strife. A psychopath does not exist stand alone. S/he is existing because our society had a cyclic need for psychopaths. Neither is a completely self-less individual. S/he exists because society in parts of the cycle had use for self-lessness. They co-exist, because humanitys evolution - a blind and thoughtless process, attempted to adapt us as efficiently to this cycle of slaughter and recovery as possi ble. Which is horrifying. But also liberating. If you know what you are made off, the societys material science so to speak- you can specify and build social constructs and manouver them in a way that avoids breakage- and a falling back into the cycle.
akvadrako 8y ago
It's quite annoying to see emotion tied in with altruism, for they are largely orthogonal concerns. Emotion only leads to altruistic behavior in a small set of circumstances that we have been programmed to react to. And just following your emotions often makes things worse, so if you care about helping people it should be avoided. Being an unemotional altruistic, one who does it for rational reasons, it more reliable and scalable.
- hutzlibu 8y ago
  "And just following your emotions often makes things worse, so if you care about helping people it should be avoided." Sources or arguments? Because I see things different. If I don't feel like helping, I don't. I made the experience if I force myself to it, it often leads to a worse outcome. (Like breaking things) Fun fact: Hitler felt that Antisemitism is wrong, but at some point he choose his rational over his feelings and became what he became. Because his rational reasons were that the jews were clearly poison to the good aryan people so to help them, he had to fight the enemy. ("literally stated somewhere in Mein Kampf") ... but feelings and emotions and rational and instinct and intuition often gets mixed up and I doubt you clearly seperate it.
  - akvadrako 8y ago
    I don't understand your personal story - if your helping is likely to break things, then it's not rational to keep doing it. Charities are a good example - lots of people donate to charities to feel good, regardless of the effectiveness of that donation. Most of that money is wasted, for example on fundraising. What sense does it make to donate to charities that spend more on fundraising? But if your goal is altruistic, instead of selfish, you should donate to charities that give the best results.
    - hutzlibu 8y ago
      "I don't understand your personal story - if your helping is likely to break things, then it's not rational to keep doing it." Yes you did not understand. The keywords were "feeling like it". Meaning I only help if I feel like it - then it is effective. Otherwise not. Very simple.
mrsmee89 8y ago
This debate seems over the top. It’s pretty simple. A person who has a strong sense of self (“selfish”) is the one that can truly empathize. Empathy drives true selflessness because u can connect with another person and feel their needs transparently. Once you feel someone’s needs transparently it’s pretty hard to get not take care of those needs (to the empathizers best ability). If we tap into that empathy (which I believe everyone living on planet earth has a strong dose of) imagine how much better our world would be.

91 points by lainon 8y ago

One also has to factor in second dimension which is behavior towards in-group and out-groups. I understand that as we become more multi-cultural, there is a decrease in the percieved kinship between city dwellers and thus less alturistic behavior. Basically, in diverse cities people are more likely to be assholes to each other. > Relatively homogeneous societies invest more in public goods, indicating a higher level of public altruism. For example, the degree of ethnic homogeneity correlates with the government's share of gross domestic product as well as the average wealth of citizens. Case studies of the United States, Africa and South-East Asia find that multi-ethnic societies are less charitable and less able to cooperate to develop public infrastructure. Moscow beggars receive more gifts from fellow ethnics than from other ethnies [sic]. A recent multi-city study of municipal spending on public goods in the United States found that ethnically or racially diverse cities spend a smaller portion of their budgets and less per capita on public services than do the more homogeneous cities. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiculturalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiculturalism

digi_owl 8y ago
Do wonder if in/out and altruism/psychopathy overlap. Meaning that an altruist has a wider sense of in-group, while a psychopath has a much narrower one. I guess this however opens up the possibility that one can "learn" to be a psychopath by narrowing ones in-group.
- mantas 8y ago
  That'd mean most, if not all, ancient people were psychopaths. Also, many people are not altruistic even to their in-group.
Bizarro 8y ago
I understand that as we become more multi-cultural, there is a decrease in the percieved kinship between city dwellers and thus less alturistic behavior. Maybe more multi-ethnic, but I'm not sure about multi-cultural. If anything, at least we globally share a baseline of culture because of the internet and I only see that increasing...hopefully.
- mantas 8y ago
  Hopefully not. Monocultural world would be a very boring place. We need true cultural diversity on planet earth. Not this mono-culture-but-multiple-colors-and-dongles bullshit.
  - xvire 8y ago
    Yes, wars, fueled by cultural differences are not great, but god save us from boredom.
    - mantas 8y ago
      If your goal is to have no wars, plenty of scum would gladly take the wheel and force their culture upon you.
  - hutzlibu 8y ago
    He said a baseline of culture. Not global monoculture standard
    - mantas 8y ago
      What if baseline happens to be China and Russia style? I'd rather not rely on baselines.
  - gepi79 8y ago
    Important cultural differences (not festivities and language but religion and morality and ethics) means that people of a culture can not enjoy or even tolerate another culture. As European, I can only hope the world will adapt a secular vegan European-like culture and not e.g. the war loving US culture with lying government officials (even worse than some European nations) or the Chinese culture (e.g. Social Credits and no freedom of speech) or the work culture of South Korea and Japan or a Muslim/Sharia culture or a culture of genital mutilation of boys and girls or a culture of throwing acid in the faces of people or a caste system like in India.
agumonkey 8y ago
I seriously wonder if there's a gradient of altruism based on resemblance.

jph 8y ago

The selfish–selfless spectrum is valuable for technical leaders to improve teamwork, in my experience. We call this social value orientation (SVO) which involves an individual’s natural preference with respect to the allocation of resources. During technical leadership this comes up with e.g. feature prioritization, competitive/collaborative agile planning, and how to create "nudges" to increase team success. https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/social_value_orientation https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/social_value_orientat...

ExactoKnight 8y ago
Very interesting. My only criticism? Perhaps too much of a focus on procedural justice. Peter Thiel has a great talk on how one of the biggest problems in western societies is that we have moved away from having a determinate view of the future, to an indeterminate one. This has been driven in big part on the idea that process matter more than substance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZM_JmZdqCw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZM_JmZdqCw E.g. Lawyers are more concerned with society having a fair process or procedure for doing things, than its advancement.
- acou_nPlusOne_t 8y ago
  But the future is undeterministic? Its a tree with lots of branches- of which one of those with variations will become reality. To assume one knows the exact path, might be a helpfull tool for a small group working towards a goal, but from the eagle perspective, that is what all these companies are. Exploring branches of a tree of propabilites. Thiel basically argues for not having his view as a large scale investor. But that is bogus, if you want to be a succesfull CEO you might have to pivot, pivoting essentially means giving up your branch- and navigate to another branch of the scenario tree, whos succes-propability is closely related to your tech. Which is why you should think about what is possible with the stuff you develop, not about one product. This of course is demoralizing for the individual coder. If you write code that is product-bound, that code could go to the bin at any second. That is why they usually do not get told. At some level- there is only one product, on mission, one group against all others. But at project management level, one should realize there might even within the same companys, several projects clustering around the same core-tech, trying to use what is possible for diffrent approaches.

WillReplyfFood 8y ago

I still vehemently disagree on displaying this as a discreet spectrum. This suggests that a "normed" middle exists - which intuitively might seem right. But if you consider the human condition, which is usually maxing out a habbitats ressource with followed up warfare and habbitat recovery due to the warfare- then the "spectrum" is merely a adaption to the cycle of strife, mere sides to a coin which adapted to maximize throughput of individuals supporting the adaption too the cycle of strife. A psychopath does not exist stand alone. S/he is existing because our society had a cyclic need for psychopaths. Neither is a completely self-less individual. S/he exists because society in parts of the cycle had use for self-lessness. They co-exist, because humanitys evolution - a blind and thoughtless process, attempted to adapt us as efficiently to this cycle of slaughter and recovery as possi ble. Which is horrifying. But also liberating. If you know what you are made off, the societys material science so to speak- you can specify and build social constructs and manouver them in a way that avoids breakage- and a falling back into the cycle.

akvadrako 8y ago

It's quite annoying to see emotion tied in with altruism, for they are largely orthogonal concerns. Emotion only leads to altruistic behavior in a small set of circumstances that we have been programmed to react to. And just following your emotions often makes things worse, so if you care about helping people it should be avoided. Being an unemotional altruistic, one who does it for rational reasons, it more reliable and scalable.

hutzlibu 8y ago
"And just following your emotions often makes things worse, so if you care about helping people it should be avoided." Sources or arguments? Because I see things different. If I don't feel like helping, I don't. I made the experience if I force myself to it, it often leads to a worse outcome. (Like breaking things) Fun fact: Hitler felt that Antisemitism is wrong, but at some point he choose his rational over his feelings and became what he became. Because his rational reasons were that the jews were clearly poison to the good aryan people so to help them, he had to fight the enemy. ("literally stated somewhere in Mein Kampf") ... but feelings and emotions and rational and instinct and intuition often gets mixed up and I doubt you clearly seperate it.
- akvadrako 8y ago
  I don't understand your personal story - if your helping is likely to break things, then it's not rational to keep doing it. Charities are a good example - lots of people donate to charities to feel good, regardless of the effectiveness of that donation. Most of that money is wasted, for example on fundraising. What sense does it make to donate to charities that spend more on fundraising? But if your goal is altruistic, instead of selfish, you should donate to charities that give the best results.
  - hutzlibu 8y ago
    "I don't understand your personal story - if your helping is likely to break things, then it's not rational to keep doing it." Yes you did not understand. The keywords were "feeling like it". Meaning I only help if I feel like it - then it is effective. Otherwise not. Very simple.

mrsmee89 8y ago

This debate seems over the top. It’s pretty simple. A person who has a strong sense of self (“selfish”) is the one that can truly empathize. Empathy drives true selflessness because u can connect with another person and feel their needs transparently. Once you feel someone’s needs transparently it’s pretty hard to get not take care of those needs (to the empathizers best ability). If we tap into that empathy (which I believe everyone living on planet earth has a strong dose of) imagine how much better our world would be.